BooksBarbecue
Back The Fall of Valor Save as PDF
Chapters (51)
  1. Introduction by Michael Bronski
  2. BEGINNING
  3. II
  4. III
  5. IV
  6. V
  7. VI
  8. VII
  9. VIII
  10. IX
  11. X
  12. XI
  13. XII
  14. XIII
  15. MIDDLE
  16. II
  17. III
  18. IV
  19. V
  20. VI
  21. VII
  22. VIII
  23. IX
  24. X
  25. XI
  26. XII
  27. XIII
  28. XIV
  29. XV
  30. XVI
  31. XVII
  32. XVIII
  33. XIX
  34. XX
  35. END
  36. II
  37. III
  38. IV
  39. V
  40. VI
  41. VII
  42. VIII
  43. IX
  44. X
  45. XI
  46. XII
  47. XIII
  48. XIV
  49. XV
  50. XVI
  51. About the Author

The long list of names—endlessly long, since this was only one day out of many days past and to come—was divided into the three states of the metropolitan neighborhood—New York, New Jersey, Connecticut—and these in turn were separated by smaller captions reading: African Area, Alaskan Area, Pacific Area. By no act of the imagination could one conceive that each of these names listed so succinctly in fine print had been a living young man with an identity of his own; it was equally impossible to grasp the individual death, the young life somewhere stopped, the anguish left behind in some fine house, flat, slum or farm at home . . .

MATYJASIK, Richard, t/4; wife, Mrs. Agnes B. Matyjasik, Binghamton.

MATZKO, Donald L., pfc; wife, Mrs. Phyllis Matzko, Batavia.

MATZKOWITZ, Irving J., pvt; wife, Mrs. Rachel Matzkowitz, Brooklyn.

MCCUE, Charles G., t/sgt; mother, Mrs. Doris McCue, Utica.

MEADER, Henry W., pvt; mother, Mrs. Dorothy Meader, Palmyra.

MILLER, Emerson A., pvt; mother, Mrs. Alice E. Miller, Buffalo. . . .

There was a rap on the door. He threw the skirt of his robe around his bare knees and called out: “Come in.”

A young boy entered, the lad who served below as porter, doorman, bus boy, and sometimes desk clerk. “Message, sir.”

“Thank you, Joe.”

The envelope was engraved DUNE HOUSE in the upper left corner and addressed simply: “Mr. Grandin.” He ripped it open and read the brief note, written in a painstakingly legible hand; it almost looked as if the writer had resisted an impulse to print the entire message in block letters:

Dear Johnnie,

What do you think! We have moved into Dune House. We are in Room 212. Come on down!

Cliff

He read the note again. Then he got off the bed, slipped out of his dressing gown, and began pulling on a clean shirt. He was tying his tie in front of the mirror when Ethel said: “Where are you going?” He handed her the note.

“Do you mean to tell me,” she said after a moment, “that you’re going down there now, this minute, the very moment they—”

“The very moment they what?”

“Whistle,” she said.

“I don’t hear any whistle and it isn’t ‘they’ to begin with. The note is from Cliff, if you’ll look again. For that matter, is there any reason why I shouldn’t?”

She still hadn’t answered by the time he left the room.

XIII

XIII

“Hi, Johnnie! You surprised?”

“Rather.” He closed the door behind him.